by John Lutz
“Claire? It’s Maddy,” came a woman’s voice on the other end of the connection. Madison Capp, the dancer friend who’d recommended the movers.
“Hi, Maddy,” Claire said.
“The movers been there?”
“And left. Thanks for recommending them. They were terrific. They didn’t dent or scratch anything.”
“And they’re very decorative, aren’t they?”
“I have to say yes.”
“Was the big blond one there? Lars whatever?”
“Yeah. Lars Svenson.”
“He come on to you?”
“Somewhat. He an actor or something?”
“Nope, just a hunk with a line of bullshit. A friend of mine went out with him after he helped move her into an apartment a few months ago.”
“Oh? She give you any reports?”
“Haven’t seen her. She left the city. I heard she got a movie part in Europe in one of those erotic coming-of-age flicks. She’s bi.”
“Bisexual?”
“No, bilingual. But she must have been more than satisfied with Lars in any language.”
“Must have been,” Claire said, laughing.
“Anyway, you’re serious about someone, right?”
“Right. Jubal Day. He’s an actor.”
“Ah! Played in Metabolism in the Village last year?”
“Same Jubal Day.”
“Then I can see why you’re serious. What’s he doing now?”
“Metabolism’s touring. He’s in Kansas City.”
“Too bad he can’t be with you. Well, if you need anything, Claire, give me a call.”
“I will. And thanks again, Maddy.”
“So be happy and get back to nesting.”
Claire replaced the phone in her purse and did just that. She continued her rounds of the apartment, touching, adjusting, rearranging, feeling very domestic.
She was feeling that way more and more—domestic. It was strange. Maddy had used the word nesting. Birds did that, made a nest, a home. Homemaking. That was what was on Claire’s mind these days, and there was a deep pleasure in it.
She wondered what was wrong with her.
She realized suddenly that in the excitement of moving, she’d forgotten to check the box downstairs to see if the postal service had started mail delivery at her new address.
At first, when she stood in the tiled lobby and opened the brass mailbox beneath her apartment number, Claire thought she might as well not have bothered. The box was empty except for yet another offer to open a new charge account, and a coupon for free pizza delivery.
Then she noticed the letter-size white envelope scrunched up against the side of the box.
In the envelope was her second major stroke of luck.
It was a gracefully handwritten letter from Aunt Em, her favorite relative, who lived in Maine. The letter was creased and folded around a check.
After Claire had e-mailed the good news about taking over one of the most important roles on Broadway, Aunt Em e-mailed back that she was sending Claire a congratulatory gift. And here it was. Enough money to do what Claire had often told her was one of her fondest desires—hiring a professional decorator. Aunt Em’s generous check was the perfect gift, with the new apartment.
Claire thought about calling Maddy back and sharing her good news, then decided against it. Maddy thought about little beyond dancing. Her idea of a well-decorated apartment was one with more than one place to sit.
Which, Claire had to admit, was maybe the reason why Maddy was one of the most frequently employed dance gypsies in New York.
Claire liked Maddy, but she’d always thought a human being should have more than one interest.
She was pretty sure she’d locked the apartment door behind her, so she left the lobby to go outside and walk to the Duane Reade drugstore two blocks down, where she could buy a nice thank-you card for Aunt Em.
It was a beautiful warm day, sunny, so that even the curbside plastic trash bags glistened with reflected light like jewels set along the avenue. Maybe it was only her mood, but people on the sidewalk seemed less preoccupied, more tuned in to the world and happier.
Sometimes, Claire thought, life could be just about perfect.
Also surprising.
5
Pearl lay in bed in her crummy fourth-floor walk-up, staring at the cracked ceiling that needed paint like the rest of the place.
She’d bought decorating supplies last month after renting the apartment six months ago—colonial white latex flat paint with matching glossy enamel. Also brushes, scrapers, rollers, paint trays, plastic drop cloths, even some kind of sponge contraption for trimming corners and around window and door frames. She had everything she needed other than enthusiasm. And time.
Things kept getting in the way, like murders, rapes, robberies, occupying most of her hours and demanding most of her energy.
So the painting supplies all sat in a narrow, shelfless closet in the hall, waiting to be used. Pearl hadn’t looked at them in weeks.
The Job, her job, where was it going? She knew where everyone, including her, thought it was going, since the evening she’d had the run-in with that asshole Egan.
She’d been off duty and had gone into the Meermont Hotel to use the ladies’ room, such facilities being rare and precious in Manhattan. To reach the restrooms she had to walk through the Meermont’s softly lit, oak-paneled lounge, and she’d heard her name called.
When she’d stopped and turned, there was Captain Vincent Egan seated on the end stool at the long bar.
She’d smiled, wanting to move on, desperately having to relieve herself. But she couldn’t ignore or be brusque to the man who commanded her precinct, and who in many ways controlled her future.
“Captain Egan! Hello!” She feigned surprise and pleasure convincingly, she thought, while managing not to stand with her legs crossed.
Maybe she’d been too convincing. Egan slid his bulky, bullnecked self down off his bar stool and advanced on her. Seeing his unsteadiness, looking into his somewhat glazed blue eyes, she realized with a shock he was drunk.
“You undercover?” he had asked, moving close to her so she could smell that he’d been drinking bourbon and plenty of it. She glanced over at his glass on the bar. An on-the-rocks glass, empty but for half-melted ice. “If you’re undercover,” Egan slurred at her, “you really shouldn’t have addreshed me as captain.”
And I really have to go to the bathroom. “I know that, sir. I’m not undercover. I’m between shifts, on my way to meet someone for dinner, and just stopped in to use the ladies’ room.”
She saw his eyes gain focus and travel up and down her body. She was wearing a sweater, skirt, and navy high heels. The sweater might be too tight. Pearl had dressed up for the man she was meeting, an assistant DA she’d struck up a conversation with in court. She didn’t see much hope that anything might come of the dinner, but still she had to try. Or so she told herself.
Egan had been swaying this way and that, as if he were on the deck of a ship, while he’d stared at her chest. “I’ve never sheen you sho dolled up.”
Uh-oh. He was loaded, all right. She’d heard right the first time; he was slurring his words.
“I’ve never sheen you sho attractive.”
You’ve never seen me piddle in public.
“You have great…,” he said. “I mean, I’ve alwaysh greatly admired you, Offisher Kashner.”
“Captain Egan, listen, I’ve gotta—”
His beefy hand rested on her shoulder. “Politicsh, Offisher Kashner. You are a fine offisher, and I have noted that. A hard, hard worker. Determined. But are you conshidering politicsh’s role in your career?” A spray of spittle went with the question.
“Oh, sure. Politics. I really—”
He’d moved to within inches of her, and his fingertips brushed her cheek. “Lishen, Pug—”
“I really don’t like to be called that, Captain.” She knew it was short for pugnacious
, but she also thought some of her fellow officers might be referring to her turned-up nose. One of them had even said it wasn’t the kind of nose he expected to find on a girl named Kasner. She didn’t bother telling him her mother had been pure Irish. She’d instead elbowed him in the ribs, not smiling.
But Captain Egan had been smiling, and it was a smile Pearl had seen on too many men. “I happen to know the hotel manager and can get a room here for the night,” he said. “We are, I can shee, compatible. That ish to shay, we like each other. I can tell that. It would be in both our intereshst to think about a room.” He swayed nearer. “They all have bathrooms.”
“Not a good idea, Captain.”
“But I thought you had to…uh, go.” He winked. She realized he thought he was being charming.
“Not that bad, I don’t.” She moved back so his fingertips were no longer touching her face. The bastard actually thought he was getting away with something, making progress with her. It was pissing her off. If she didn’t have to go so bad…
“I’m your shuperior offisher, Pug.” His hand, suddenly free, dropped to her left breast and stayed there like Velcro. “If you sheriously object—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Pearl did seriously object. She hit him hard in the jaw with her right fist, feeling a satisfying jolt travel down her arm into her shoulder. It was a good punch. It sent him staggering backward to sit slumped on the floor between two vacant bar stools.
He had fought his way up frantically, like a panicked non-swimmer who didn’t know he was in shallow water, flailing his arms and legs and knocking over a bar stool he tried to use for support. His broad face was twisted and ugly with anger.
He’d looked amazingly sober then. “Listen, Kasner!”
But Pearl had spun on her high heels and was striding toward the ladies’ room, where she knew he wouldn’t follow.
She understood immediately the gravity of what she’d done. Knew she’d screwed up. At least there were witnesses in the bar, a lineup of men and a few women, many of them grinning at her in the back-bar mirror as she passed. Hotel guests, most of them. Witnesses. She could locate them if she had to. Asshole Egan would have to know that.
“Kasner!”
Now she did turn. She balled her right fist and raised her voice. “You really want me to come back, Captain Egan?”
He flinched. He was in plain clothes, but he didn’t like his rank and name spoken so loudly. Not in these circumstances.
Maybe he knew what she was doing and suddenly realized his own vulnerability, because he seemed suddenly aware of the other lounge patrons and the two bartenders, all staring at him.
He dug out his wallet, threw some bills on the bar next to his empty glass, then stalked out.
Pearl continued to the ladies’ room.
When she emerged ten minutes later, calm but still angry, Egan was nowhere in sight.
As she walked swiftly through the bar toward the lobby, she heard applause.
The dinner date was disastrous. Pearl couldn’t stop thinking about Captain Egan and what had happened, what she’d done. She couldn’t stop blaming herself as well as Egan.
Anger, depression, stress. Pearl’s world.
Days had passed, and that world didn’t collapse in on Pearl. Word had gotten around, though, like a subterranean current.
Still, there had been no reprisals. Egan was married. There were witnesses to his altercation with Pearl, and he’d been close to falling-down drunk, while she’d been sober. Internal affairs was never involved. No official charges were ever filed. NYPD politics at work.
She, and everyone else, knew that Egan was patiently waiting for his opportunity. Pearl didn’t figure to have a long or distinguished career as a cop.
“Damn!” she said to her bedroom ceiling, and tried to think about something else. Her mind was a merry-go-round she couldn’t stop. Maybe she should get out of bed and paint.
Yeah, at eleven-thirty at night.
It was one of the few times in her life when Pearl wished she had something other than her work. But she’d had several disastrous romances and had lost her faith in men. Most men, anyway. No, all men. The entire fucking gender. None of them seemed to be for her.
Fedderman, being her partner, was the man she spent the most time with. A decent enough guy, married, three kids, overweight, overdeodorized, eighteen years older than Pearl, and more interested in pasta than sex.
Not much hope there.
The other men in her life, her fellow officers and men she encountered in other city jobs, sometimes made plays for her. None of them interested her. These guys were far more interested in sex than pasta, or anything else. Invariably, they talked a great game, but it was talk. The few guys she’d given a tumble couldn’t keep up with her in or out of the sack, and they tended to run off at the mouth. Pearl didn’t like that. Pearl figured the hell with them. When it came to what really mattered, they didn’t have it.
Maybe she picked them wrong. Or maybe that was just men.
She laced her fingers behind her head and closed her eyes. If she could only meet some guy who wasn’t all front. Who wasn’t shooting angles or afraid to care and act like he cared. Who wasn’t so dishonest with her.
Who knows how lonely I am.
Who isn’t so…
She fell asleep thinking about it.
Him.
Like she sometimes did on nights when she didn’t drink scotch or take a pill.
Lars Svenson wouldn’t let the woman sleep. Whenever he knew she was dozing off, he’d lay into her again with the whip. It was a short, supple whip, and about as big around as a shoelace, so it stung and left narrow but painful welts on the woman’s bare back.
She couldn’t avoid the lashes, because she was lying on her stomach on her bed, her hands tied to the headboard, her feet to the iron bed frame’s legs. She couldn’t cry out, because a rectangle of silver duct tape covered her mouth.
He lashed her again and she managed a fairly loud whimper.
Lars stood back and smiled down at her. Through the web of hair over her left eye, she stared up at him. He loved the pain in her dark gaze and the message it sent.
He gave her a few more, striking her just so, barely breaking the skin.
It wasn’t the first time for her. He’d known that when he picked her up in the Village bar, where she wouldn’t have been if she wasn’t cruising for this kind of action. She was plump and dark, maybe Jewish or Italian, with a mop of obviously dyed blond hair and the kind of wide smile people called vivacious. He’d seen in her eyes what she wanted. She saw in his that he’d supply it. After only one drink she’d suggested they go to her apartment.
When they’d undressed, he saw that she was even plumper than she’d appeared in clothes. Not exactly what you’d call fat, though.
Lars knew where to look. He saw bruises around her nipples, faint scars on her thighs and buttocks. Her back looked fresh, though. He’d take care of that.
Tiring of using the whip, he propped it in the crack of her ass and went over to the dresser, where he had a cold beer sitting on a coaster so as not to mar the finish. Lars respected furniture.
The woman was sobbing now. He took a sip of beer and regarded her. It might be time to talk to her, softly tell her what else he was going to do to her. Then he realized he’d forgotten her name. It sounded Russian or something and was hard to recall.
He grinned. She wasn’t in any position now to refresh his memory.
She twisted her neck, trying to get him in her range of vision, wondering if he was still in the room. He shouldn’t have gone yet, leaving her bound and gagged. That was breaking the rules.
Then he remembered. Or thought he did.
“Flo?”
She reacted immediately, tensing her buttocks and straining to look in the direction of his voice.
“If you’re a good girl, Flo, maybe I’ll take you out for breakfast tomorrow.” Letting her know he was staying the long night through.
She managed only one of her whimpers.
He decided the bottoms of Flo’s bare feet shouldn’t be ignored.
6
Quinn was up late at the kitchen’s tiny gray Formica table, smoking a cheap cigar and studying the Elzner murder file. Rather, the copy of the file, which Renz had provided.
He was drinking beer from a thick, clouded tumbler that looked as if it had been stolen from a diner years ago. The foam head had disappeared except for a light, sudsy film along the glass’s sides, and the beer was warm.
Quinn exhaled cigar smoke and leaned back away from the open file. There really wasn’t much of value inside it. Sure, there were things that didn’t quite add up, that suggested someone other than Martin Elzner had fired the shots that killed Elzner and his wife. But almost always in cases of violent death, there were such loose ends, questions that would never be answered. Lives that were stopped abruptly left them behind as if to haunt and not be forgotten. If you were a cop long enough, you didn’t expect to ever understand everything.
He propped the cigar in a cracked saucer he was using as an ashtray, then took a sip of beer. There was one thing, though, that stuck like a bur in his mind. The groceries. The Elzners must have bought them before the stores closed, then were putting them away when the shooting occurred. But no one in any of the surrounding grocery stores or all-night delis, where they might have bought groceries, recalled them being there. Of course it was possible they’d shopped just down the block from their apartment and not been recognized. Or had been recognized and forgotten. People didn’t go around paying attention to everything around them in case they might be quizzed later.
So, maybe the groceries were going to remain another of those unanswered questions.
But there was also the gun, a Walther .38-caliber semiautomatic. It was a large enough caliber to make plenty of noise, yet no one in neighboring apartments had heard shots.
That, too, was possible, especially at the time of the Elzners’ deaths. But it made the marks on the gun and the bullet nicks all the more likely to have been made by a silencer.